• What is a Home Page?
  • Elements of a Home Page
• Design Considerations

Home Pages

What is a Home Page?

When you access a particular site on the World Wide Web, you generally first view that site’s home page. A home page is the "front," or main, page of a Web site. Generally, the page bears the name of the default page, commonly home.html or default.html, and resides within the root directory for that server. An example of a URL pointing to a home page might be:

http://www.process.com/

A home page is generally designed to be an introductory page to an organization’s or an individual’s web site. From the home page, users can find information about the organization serving the page, the activities or services of that organization, or a great amount of other data.

Elements of a Home Page

Most home pages have several common elements:

• A descriptive title in the bar at the top of the browser window
• A header featuring a name and logo
• An introductory section explaining the purpose and features of the page
• Links to other locations on the server or another server dealing with information related to the home page
• Information for contacting the home page’s maintainer (often referred to as the webmaster)

The hyperlinks from a home page should lead users to other pages with related information. Since there is no guarantee that clients leaving the home page will return right away, home page writers often restrict these links to internal resources. Any links to external sources can be provided from pages that branch off the home page.

Design Considerations

There are some considerations to bear in mind when you begin to actually construct your home page. More than half of all Web users are accessing the Internet at 28.8K baud or slower. This means that, for most users, the process of downloading and viewing large graphic files is slow and tedious. Therefore, it is generally a good practice to make a home page that is pleasing to the eye and informative without being overwhelming to the user.

Also, it is important to consider other aspects of user hardware when developing pages. One thing to remember is that many users are operating with 256 colors. If you use graphics that rely on a large color depth for clarity, many users will not be able to properly view your page.

Another fact forgotten frequently by developers (who tend to have larger monitors and use higher resolution) is that many users are operating at 640x480 resolution. For these users, pages designed with respect to 800x600 resolution or greater might be cumbersome and unappealing.

It is also important to make it easy to find information on a home page. There are several techniques designers can use to make navigation simple and logical. Some of these tools are:

• Lists: Using lists makes it simple to highlight important information. HTML supports many different kinds of lists, such as bulleted and numbered lists.

• Image Maps: Clickable image maps make it easy to graphically illustrate links. With an image map, users need to click in only a logical place to link to a page with more information.

• Return Links: It is common for an organization to have information on several pages, all linked from the home page. Because even these internal "webs" can become large, it is a good idea to keep a link to the home page on each sub-page, so user can always return to the beginning.

• Tables: Because HTML depends on individual browsers for interpretation, it is not possible to perform screen layout tasks using font types and sizes for guidance. One powerful formatting tool is the table. Tables allow designers to perform more exact page layout tasks.

• Frames: Frames permit designers to display two separate pages at one time on a browser. This is a powerful tool and many developers often use to create button bars and navigation maps.